4 Ways to Strike Gold with Mid-Market Prospect Data

Marketers talk a lot about targeting big, enterprise-level prospects, and at OMI we know the value of reaching small businesses, but what about the businesses in between? A recent Harvard Business Review article called the middle market a “critical yet often overlooked segment of our national economy.” Businesses considered to be mid-market typically have around 250-1,000 employees and revenues from $100-500 million. Not too big and not too small, mid-market targets are the “Goldilocks” prospects many businesses need to generate new revenue.

 

But to strike gold with this market, you need to start with a strong data foundation. Marketers have realized the value of turning to a third-party provider to fuel customer acquisition and scale their business, but if the data isn’t accurate it can end up causing more harm than good. Data from unreliable and low-quality vendors may look bright and shiny—and come with a low price tag—but it’s nothing more than fool’s gold. It’s estimated poor data quality costs the U.S. economy $3.1 trillion per year. Many of the problems marketers face with third-party data can be tied to these four data provider pain points:

 

1. Lack of specialization in contact data.

There are many data sources available to marketers today, but not all are from vendors that specialize in contact data. Is contact data the core competency of the data vendor you’re considering or just one of many services they offer? Maintaining data accuracy is difficult, and if the vendor doesn’t dedicate significant time to it, chances are their data accuracy will suffer. And your campaigns will too. 

 

2. Lack of experience.

Consider how long the data vendor has been in business. While a long-time business doesn’t automatically mean quality data, new vendors lack data cleansing experience and often struggle with quality issues.

 

3. No ongoing data hygiene.

Contact data must be continuously verified and validated because B2B data is regularly decaying as people change companies, get promoted, move locations and purchase new devices. Ask your potential vendor if data hygiene was performed prior to receipt of the file. And was the data tested for validity? These steps can save you from wasting your time—not to mention the cost of paying for bad data.

 

4. No data guarantee.

A reliable provider knows their data is accurate and will stand behind it. If they don’t offer an initial accuracy guarantee, chances are there’s a reason why.

 

Making everything come together for your B2B campaigns is a challenge; it takes finding the right prospects, continually adding to your audience and using identifiers to target them with the right message.

 

At OMI, we’ve specialized in high-quality contact data since 2004 and have more than 78 million B2B manager-level contacts from more than 18 million businesses—including mid-market businesses. And we’re so confident in the quality of our contact data, we guarantee 95% validity for 30 days. Contact us today to learn how OMI’s data can open the door to reach new mid-market targets for your business.

 

 

Outward Media’s proven data cleansing services and targeted, accurate B2B data can enable you to achieve better digital marketing ROI and, ultimately, convert more prospects into customers. Go here to find out about leveraging our SMB and medical market data on the LiveRamp Data Marketplace.